


a vow sworn under stars

by Sparrows



Category: Pyre (Video Game)
Genre: Other, but hey there's One smooch, in which i realise how keeping my fave to the near-end, is actually a super-shitty move in context of the game, it's sad I'm sorry, the reader is nb just fyi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 14:59:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11831151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparrows/pseuds/Sparrows
Summary: "i have been selfish," the reader says, their breath a thin mist in the cold night air. "i have been... utterly selfish, hedwyn. i thought you might like to know."there are few rites remaining, and the reader must make something known.





	a vow sworn under stars

**Author's Note:**

> first written piecemeal on the supergiant games discord, and then stored here so i can upset everyone else with it too (there's a brief reference to another, shorter piece i wrote on there, but you won't miss anything if you don't have the context for it)
> 
> you ever think about how, in-game, by keeping your faves around you're purposely keeping them away from the surface, just 'cause you'll miss them too much when they're gone?

"Hedwyn," the Reader says softly, one night. They twist their hands before them, gaze pointed at the floor instead of his face. "A... a word outside, if you would." They glance up only long enough to look at him, barely meeting his eyes before looking down once more.

Outside, the night air is cold, crisp; Hedwyn shivers under his cloak, already missing the relative warmth of the blackwagon. Still, he folds his arms and tries to will the cold away, glancing sidelong at the Reader while he waits for them to speak. It takes a while, sometimes; he's not sure how they were in the Commonwealth, but in the months that he's known them, they've been prone to great silences between words. Like it takes them a great effort to speak, even for a little while. But that's okay: he has never minded waiting. Not for them.

Eventually they take a deep breath, face tilting up to catch the moonlight. There are still stars overhead, not yet devoured by the darkness, but they are few in number; when Hedwyn looks up, it gives him a peculiar ache to see so many familiar constellations wiped out. The moonlight gilds the edges of the Reader's face and hair in silver when their hood slides away.

"I have been selfish," they say, their breath a thin mist in the cold night air. "I have been... utterly _selfish,_ Hedwyn. I thought you might like to know."

Hedwyn frowns, brows creasing. He tips his head to the side, inspecting the Reader's face; he sees their eyes closed, expression drawn in some kind of deep anguish. When they open their eyes again, tears glitter like tiny stars on their lashes. "Selfish?" he echoes. "My friend... you have been anything but."

They shake their head. "No," they whisper, "I have. Because you're still here." The words leave them like a hammerblow. "There are so few rites left - two, maybe, if we're lucky - and I've _kept_  you here. With me."

Hedwyn opens his mouth, but no words come. His breath catches, instead, and he looks back to the dwindling stars. Something complicated knots up his stomach.

"Every time I thought about liberating you... I couldn't bring myself to do it." Their voice wavers. "I can't leave the Downside. I'll - I'll never see _any_ of you again, once you're gone."

Hedwyn reaches out and lays a hand on their shoulder. "Reader," he begins uncertainly, and then the words fail him again. He leaves his hand where it is.

"I wanted to keep you near. Just a little longer, I told myself. The next Rite, I'll do it." They wrap both arms around themself, hands trembling, shoulders shaking even under the steady pressure of Hedwyn's hand. He hears the choked, aborted noises of them swallowing down tears; it reminds him, for a moment, of their dry weeping into his shoulder almost a year ago. "But I never _did,_ " they say, the words half-warbled.

The Reader shields their face with their hands, but he knows them by now; he knows, as sure as he knows the sun in the sky, the way they behave when they need comfort. He abandons his hand on their shoulder and turns, instead, to wrap them in his arms. Their weeping hitches for a moment, stuttering into nothing as he pulls them in close. They've been losing weight for a while, he thinks, the despair of the Downside getting to them and sapping them of their hope, and when they curl against him it's like holding a doll.

"You can hate me if you want," they say, muffled against his cloak. "Hate me all you like. I - I know I would. I've kept you down here, because - because I'm too _selfish_  to let go of the person I--"

Hedwyn cuts them off. "I don't hate you," he says softly. "I never could, you know. It would take a great deal for that." He looks up into the relentless dark. What would Jodi say, were she here? He doesn't know.

He doesn't know how to tell them that he'd choose this over the Commonwealth, if they were here and not there; he doesn't know how to say that the thought of being parted from them, even if it reunites him with Rukey and Jodariel, makes something ugly tear through his chest. He doesn't know how to tell them _any_ of it. He is their friend and yet even that moniker seems pale, weak, in the light of what he feels.

Instead he clings to them, pressing his chin into the top of their head when their face buries against his chest. The moon shines down upon them and the cold winds blow, but he dares not move; it might break whatever fragile spell this is, where they are alone in their grief, standing in the darkness beyond the blackwagon. He lifts a hand to run his fingers through the back of their hair, feeling the way they shiver against him, caught in his arms.

"Reader," he says again, barely louder than a sigh. "...We shouldn't stay out too long. It's cold. You'll get ill."

It's not what he means to say. Not at all. But the words he wants to say feel too big for him, feel too big for this quiet moment, and so he chooses different ones. The Reader pulls away from him, and he feels colder for their absence; they wipe with both sleeves at their damp face, and he's seized with the urge to take their chin in his hand and do it for them. _Too lovely a face for tears,_ he thinks he heard Pamitha say once, and now he's inclined to agree with her. "You're right," they say, snuffling a deep, shuddering breath before turning to leave.

The words he wants to say are too much for him, and so, in the end, he does not speak at all, but allows his actions to do so on his behalf.

He's not sure what he's thinking when he reaches out and snags the Reader's upper arm in his hand, spins them back to face him. There's a moment, then another, stretching into this strange silence between them, the Reader's eyes still too-bright, too-shiny, Hedwyn's own eyes fixated on them. It feels like they have both, at the same time, forgotten how to breathe, the motion of it catching in their chests; the Downside seems silent in this moment, as if everything else is also holding its breath, waiting to see what happens.

The kiss, when it happens, is a soft and tender thing. He pulls the Reader in, lets go of their arm to cradle their face in both hands, tilting it up towards his own, and for the span of seconds - stretched into an eternity so long as their lips meet - nothing else exists. It is only them, the two of them, standing out in the dark under a near-starless sky, and this contact between them. He can taste the salt of their tears against his lips when he pulls away, leaning down to press his forehead to theirs. He cannot speak; the words he needs will not come to him.

"Hedwyn," the Reader says, breathing his name against his mouth. It sends a shudder down his spine; for a moment, just a moment, he considers kissing them again. "Hedwyn, I - I promise. I... I will set things right." Their voice is soft, and strained, yet solemn at the same time - a vow sworn under what few stars remain. And then they pull away, and leave Hedwyn alone once more, and this time he makes no move to chase them.

He does not know what they meant until the next Liberation Rite, the second-to-last, when Celeste and Tariq ask who is to be anointed - and the Reader, speaking in a voice that barely trembles at all, meets his eyes, and calls his name.


End file.
